


Time As Seen Through Glass

by Kaeon



Series: MLB Short Fics [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: #FreeAdrien, Adrien's Not a Doll, Basically LadyNoir, F/M, Growing Up, Happy, I swear it's Miraculous magic, Idk even what this is xD just an idea that hit me, Kind of montagey?, Kind of sad but not really?, LadyNoir - Freeform, Lots of Thinking, Random bits of love square, Why are these kids so oblivous xD, Zippers, aged-up, lots of feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-04-24 20:37:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19180942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaeon/pseuds/Kaeon
Summary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng has just turned sixteen and, during an akuma attack, comes to a sobering, soul-searching realization regarding her true feelings for Adrien Agreste.After this moment, what will change? What will stay the same? They say time has a way of working things out, but time is really just a bunch of moments snapshotted into the sequence known as life. As these moments unfold in reality, things are rarely as simple as they should be... and what seems obvious is often just the opposite.---Basically the fic in which I rant out all my feelings about the current status of my ship in S3 and try to fix it xDD





	1. The Merits of Snoring

    It’s weird, how sometimes words will get stuck in a person’s head, playing on repeat until they’ve become something more than what they were originally meant to be.

    How a passing comment can become a realization. How a realization can become a truth that settles into heartbreak and becomes a choice.

    It was just such a comment that crept into Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s head shortly after her sixteenth birthday. That filled her up and twisted her insides until she realized what an _idiot_ she’d been.

    It was a normal midsummer day, warm and sunny in the city of love. As usual, people were walking the streets, visiting the tourist attractions and museums, eating ice cream and leaving locks on the bridges.

    And, as usual, there was an akuma.

    This one’s motivation was particularly irritating, one of those fan-boy types who’d been rejected by his celebrity crush. He spent his entire hour of existence turning people into perfect copies Adélaïde Larue, who then followed him around professing their love.

    Honestly, it was creepy, and Ladybug was glad to have it done with once the akuma had been cleansed and the people turned back to normal. She’d just fistbumped with her partner when the actress herself came storming out of a nearby building, followed by her bodyguards.

    The guy who’d been akumatized was a cameraman in his late twenties, and he stared at Adélaïde like she was the sun as she stood over him with her arms crossed.

    She looked so furious that Ladybug considered stepping in, but then the actress leaned down to the victim’s level and spoke, so quietly that no one with normal hearing would’ve made out her words.

    “I despise people like you,” she said, a hand resting on the victim’s shoulder. He went pale, and Ladybug stepped forward, but Adélaïde wasn’t done. “Do you know what it’s like to be me? Every day, random strangers come up to me and tell me they love me, and they don’t even _know_ me. They put me on a pedestal as if I am something greater than anything else, as if they could possibly know my heart. I deal with it because I love acting, and I appreciate my fans. But you?” She shook her head, and the cameraman looked like he was going to be sick. “You’ve traveled with me. You were supposed to know _better._ And then I find you with those pictures -- Jean, I am not a _statue._ I am not a jewel encrusted in gold for you to put on a pedestal and stare at! I am a _person._ ”

    Adélaïde looked so sad and angry, her whole heart in the quiet words, and Jean hung his head, looking miserable.

    “But I-- I do love you, Ad--”

    “You do not _know_ me!” she insisted, waving a hand in the air. “When have we ever gone for coffee? When have we ever spoken unprofessionally? When did you ever bother to ask me my favorite color or how I feel about my father’s absence or if I snore? What you feel is not love. It is false. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings when I got angry, but this is something you _must_ understand. I am not a doll for you to stare at. And you aren’t some random fan. You should know better than to act like it.”

    Things quieted fairly quickly after that. The actress left with her bodyguards, and Jean was led off by his friends, and Ladybug was left standing on a nearby rooftop, seeing Adélaïde’s face in her mind’s eye over and over again.

    “That was pretty crazy, huh?”

    Chat Noir stood beside her, hands on his hips, both of them down to just a couple beeps left before they’d detransform. Ladybug glanced at him.

    “You think she was… a little harsh?” her question was tentative. She wasn’t sure if she was asking or stating something she felt.

    Chat shrugged. “Not really. I mean, we deal with the same thing, you know?” He looked over to smirk at her. “And you may not believe me, M’lady, but I’m kind of famous outside this mask, too.” He winked, but it didn’t detract from the seriousness of his green eyes when he added, “I kind of agree with Mms. Larue. It sucks to never know if someone loves you for real or just because you’re pretty. That guy totally should’ve asked her out if he liked her.” He shrugged. “I mean, if he wasn’t going to, then she was right and he didn’t really care about her that way anyway.”

    Then their Miraculous beeped again, and they said their quick goodbyes before going separate ways.

    Marinette found her way home under Tikki’s watchful eyes and spent a good long while sitting in her desk chair, staring at Adrien’s face on her walls.

    She tried to list the times she’d actually bothered to ask him any of the questions Adélaïde had wanted to be asked, but she couldn’t think of any.

    Everything she knew about Adrien, she knew from watching him. From afar. Like a creepy stalker.

    Or a fangirl type.

    If she didn’t have the courage to _speak_ to him, how could she say she _loved_ him? True, she knew him better than Jean knew Adélaïde, and she knew her reasons for caring about Adrien were legitimate.

    But she didn’t know if he snored or not.

    She didn’t know his favorite color. She knew his schedule inside and out but she didn’t know how he felt about all the attention his modeling brought him -- except for that one time when they went to the movies, and he really seemed freaked out by it.

    She loved him for more than his pretty face, she knew that.

    But… he didn’t.

    And really, if she couldn’t ask him out to coffee, if she couldn’t even ask him about his day without stuttering… he didn’t know her at all. They were friends, but not close friends.

    He probably thought it was weird that she couldn’t speak normally to him.

    For some reason, these thoughts haunted Marinette all night. And all day. And all week.

    And all summer.

    She kept reminding herself of all the reasons she loved Adrien for real, kept telling herself it wasn’t… _fake_.

    But she looked at the pictures on the walls and not one of them was of _them,_ the two of them, together. They were all of _him._ As a model.

    Not as a person.

    One day, after a particularly long shift at the bakery, she sat with Alya in a coffee shop and asked, “Do you know Nino’s favorite color?”

    Alya looked at her like she was nuts, but she laughed and answered anyway. _Of course she knew that._

    Similar questions followed, all to Alya’s bemusement and Marinette’s increasing despair.

    “Does Nino snore?”

    “Yes.”

    “Do you know his favorite movies?”

    “Of course, girl.”

    “Do you guys go for coffee?”

    “Duh, all the time. I even bailed on you last week so I could go to his dad’s thing, remember? Where’s this even coming from, Marinette?”

    It continued with more and more questions, increasingly personal, until Alya got fed up and Marinette cracked and whispered, “I don’t know any of those things about Adrien.”

    For a moment, Alya was silent.

    Then she sighed and ruffled Marinette’s hair, and said, “That’s why you have to go on a date, girl. Obviously.”

    But it wasn’t that simple.

    Because Marinette said--often--that she loved Adrien.

    Yet she didn’t know any of the things someone who loved him would know.

    So how could she say she really loved him? She liked him, sure. She definitely had a crush, and it was because of more than his pretty face.

    But she didn’t love him.

    Somehow this thought hurt, but she knew it was true, deep down.

    She’d never found the courage to ask Adrien out because she knew he was out of her league, a relationship that would never truly happen. Something she could moon over and smile about to herself but never bring out into the open.

    Because it wasn’t real.

    And she was content to admire him from afar before, always failing in her attempts to speak to him or ask him out, not because there was any reason for her to be flustered but because… every time she saw his face, she lost her mind.

    His _face._

    She couldn’t even _talk_ to him.

    And it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to him.

    At all.

    She wasn’t being fair. And he was too nice, too kind, too amazing for someone like her, who couldn’t so much as manage to ask him his favorite color.

    This thought bounced around in her head for ages. It wasn’t self-deprecating, not really. The simple truth was that she didn’t _know_ Adrien well enough to say, for real, that she loved him.

    And she refused to be one of those people who made him uncomfortable. She refused to put him on a pedestal or treat him like a doll when he was a _person._

    A person whose innermost thoughts and feelings he’d never shared with her, because she couldn’t manage to ask him to.

    Marinette walked into Chloé’s summer’s end party with a choice in her head, on her mind, at the tip of her tongue.

    She would tell him, and ask him out, or she would let it go and realize that it was unfair of her to treat him the way she’d been treating him.

    Then Adrien walked into the party with Kagami Tsurugi on his arm, laughing and smiling, and the choice was made for her.


	2. The Day it Began

    It started simply, as most things do.

    It was getting close to summer, nearly a year gone by since Marinette’s decision to take Adrien down off his pedestal. She’d replaced his pictures on her walls with images of her and her friends and family having fun. She’d begun treating him the same way she did everyone else, and was surprised, after the first time, how easy it was.

    He really was just a person. A rather dorky person, honestly.

    And she still cared for him, deeply, but it was a different sort of care -- a real care. He was her friend, _really_ her friend, and that mattered far more to her than anything else.

    In the meantime, with her mind thus freed, something strange had been happening to Marinette. Her focus was no longer singularly on the boy she’d treated so unfairly, and she began to notice… _other_ things.

    The day it began was one such instance. Ladybug and Chat Noir had finished patrol early and were meandering toward the Eiffel Tower, where they would part ways as was their custom. They were chatting easily, something that had grown simpler in recent months, and Ladybug noticed that her partner seemed more sorrowful and reserved than usual.

    So she nudged him, and smiled, and asked, “What’s wrong, _mon chaton?”_

    He studied her for a moment in the moon’s glow, mouth twisting wryly, and then he sighed.

    “Ah… it’s nothing, M’lady, really. Sorry if I seem kind of out of it--”

    “Chat Noir.” She planted her hands on her hips and frowned at him. “Are we not friends? You can tell me when something’s bothering you, you know.”

    They stood there like that for several minutes, Ladybug being stubborn and Chat looking at her like he wasn’t sure what to say.

    Ladybug sighed and dropped her hands. “Nevermind, Chat. I-- I’m not being pushy. Sorry.”

    She turned to throw out her yoyo, ready to hop to the next rooftop.

    But Chat grabbed her arm, stopping her.

    “It’s not-- I don’t mind.” He looked at her and she looked at him, and he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry I’ve been distracted. I just… I broke up with my girlfriend today.”

    Ladybug stared at him, because she’d had no idea he was even dating anyone, ruthless flirt that he was.

    He continued, “We’d been dating for almost a year, but I just feel like… it’s more our parents’ thing, I don’t know. And I like her, but I’m not… in love with her. So it’s not really fair? And-- sorry, I don’t mean to ramble about this to you. She reacted badly and I feel like crap, that’s all. It’s had my head on edge.”

    Obviously, since there hadn’t been a single cat pun in that monologue.

    Ladybug stared at him a bit more, pieces clicking in her head. Almost a year… _that_ explained why he’d seemed less flirty these last few months. More friendly instead of pushy. Easier to chat with normally since he hadn’t been making passes every five seconds.

    She’d noticed, but had trumped it up to him finally growing up a bit. She wouldn’t have expected it was because he’d started dating someone.

    He was surprisingly… loyal. Then again, she knew that, so why was she surprised? The thought felt mean.

    And since she regretted it, and he looked sad, she put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, Chaton.”

    He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

    “Still, that must be hard. Tell you what, why don’t you let me buy you a coffee? Drown your sorrows?”

    He stared at her, and she hadn’t meant to suggest that, it just… slipped out. It was what Alya always did for her when she was feeling particularly miserable about something.

    After a moment, Chat laughed. “Yes, that wouldn’t be _meow_ kward at all, M’lady. Paris’ heroes in a random coffee shop. We’d have half the media down there in a heartbeat.”

    Ladybug had to laugh at the image, too, imagining all the attention they’d get. “Maybe we should pick a shop to promote,” she teased, grinning.

    Chat Noir chuckled again and slung an arm around her shoulders. “I love that you offered, though, thanks,” he said, and it was weird to hear him being so sincere. Weird to see him looking down at her with a slight smile and sparkling green eyes and-- her heart thumped. And thumped again.

    And that was how it started.

 

    They didn’t get coffee, though the next time they patrolled, Marinette picked up coffees for them before she transformed. He laughed his butt off and they sat on a secluded rooftop and chatted, and she was pleased to learn she’d guessed his order correctly -- he liked lots of cream and sugar.

    There were other things she guessed correctly about him, too. Like, his favorite color was blue. And he definitely snored. And when she asked him his favorite TV show, they ended up spending their entire patrol debating the merits of shoujo anime versus shounen.

    He liked shoujo. She liked shounen.

    They both loved Mecha Strike and Jagged Stone and--surprisingly--fashion.

    Patrols became less like _patrols_ and more like hanging out. Coffee became a regular thing, interspersed with tea or food. When Ladybug learned her partner adored sweets, she began bringing all the bakery leftovers with her in an unmarked box.

    The first time she did, he professed his undying love for chocolate and swore he’d never look at another lady again. Ladybug laughed so hard at his description of life married to a chocolate croissant that they attracted the attention of the people in the apartment building across the street.

    Then they had to run from the media attention, and they spent the whole night cracking each other up with chocolate puns, because Ladybug knew a few, too. She worked in a bakery, after all.

    Once Chat figured out she could pun, he began challenging her to duels.

    The duels became games.

    The games became customs.

    Marinette found herself wishing she could add pictures of them to her walls. She found herself thinking about him at random times. She found memes she knew he’d love and wished she could send them to him. She heard jokes in class--several made by Adrien, who was also a jokester--and wished Chat could’ve heard them.

    And then, the night of her graduation from high school, an akuma struck. She and her partner dealt with it, and later both found themselves out again, long past midnight, too keyed up to sleep after all the excitement.

    They found each other, to neither’s surprise. They talked for hours, about school--vaguely, of course--and how they’d both graduated, and what they were going to do after. She told him she had a plan but couldn’t tell him in what career. He told her he wanted to be a professor, but didn’t think it would work out, and she frowned severely at him until he laughed and explained.

    “I mean, think about it, Bugaboo.” He leaned back on his hands and smiled at the sky. “Imagine if I was teaching a class, and there was an akuma. I’d be the teacher. It would be my job to make sure all my students were safe and where they should be; I couldn’t just abandon them. Not to mention it’d be hard to keep my disappearances unnoticed. I’d probably get fired. A lot.”

    Ladybug looked at him, and her heart ached, because he’d clearly thought it through so much… and she’d seen, over the years, how much he loved kids. He’d probably be a great teacher.

    But he wouldn’t even try, because of this. Because he was willing to give up on something he wanted to help her fight Hawk Moth.

    And she knew he had to be sad about it, but he smiled at her like he was okay with it. And her heart swelled so much that she had to crack a joke to relieve the swelling, and he tipped back his head and laughed, and--

    And she found herself wishing, more than anything, that she could see his real face when he laughed like that. That she could call him when she wasn’t in the suit, that they could really go get coffee, that--

    She could see him.

    Spend time with him down there, too, on the streets of Paris instead of just its rooftops.

    She wished he could see her. Wondered what he’d think, if he knew she was really just a clumsy baker’s daughter. Wondered who he was, in his civilian life. Wanted answers to all the questions she couldn’t have answers to.

    She knew why, of course. The more they knew about each other, the more dangerous it was. There would be pros, of course, but the cons… if Hawk Moth found out through either of them, if they were akumatized…

    She remembered what had happened to Master Fu’s girlfriend, the information she’d revealed on accident when _she_ was akumatized.

    And if something like that happened… it would be bad enough if one of them was akumatized and revealed _themselves._ If both of them were found out at once?

    There’d be no one to save them, or the city. Hawk Moth had to be stopped first. If they could stop him, then the threat would be gone, and she could--

    The realization smacked her in the face, so strong she didn’t know how she could’ve missed it.

    If Hawk Moth were gone, if she could pull off this mask and have her kitty do the same… the first thing she’d do would be drag him to meet her parents. To meet Alya and Nino and Adrien.

    It wouldn’t be easy to explain, but she’d want him in her life. She’d _want_ him there. And when she thought about introducing him to them…

    It wasn’t as a friend.

    The knowledge hit her so hard that she spent nearly ten minutes staring off into space, having no idea that Chat was talking to her.

    Finally he pinched her, and that brought her back to reality, only to find him staring at her with amused concern and droopy kitty ears and--

    It wasn’t fair.

    She wanted that _now_.

 

    Ladybug parted ways with her kitty shortly after that. She spent the summer fighting akumas and interning at _Gabriel_ \--how Adrien had gotten her the job, she’d never asked, though she was eternally grateful--and working in the bakery. On the weekends she hung out with her friends, who were all preparing to head off to university too, and her nights… her nights she spent with Chat Noir.

   At first it was patrolling and hanging out two or three times a week, like always. Then it turned to two nights in a row. Three. Four.

   Until she couldn’t sleep if she hadn’t seen him, hadn’t made sure he was okay. Had eaten enough. Was being loved.

   His home life, she’d learned, was rather devoid of that. He didn’t talk about it often and when he did, he was always carefully vague, but she got the impression his mother was gone and his father might as well have been. She ached for him. She wanted him to know she was there for him, that she--

   That she loved him.

   And she did, she realized. It wasn’t a sudden realization or the kind of thing that hit her all at once. It was knowledge that came to her slowly, amid a myriad of other things. Watching him dance and laugh to distract an akuma. The terror of knowing he’d taken yet _another_ hit for her. The laughter as they sat together on a rooftop and drank chai lattes and he told her a funny, vague story about his first day at university.

    She watched him talk, clawed fingers waving animatedly, a bright grin lighting up a face that was slowly losing its youthful roundness, and… knew.

    Felt it, in a place in her chest she’d never felt such a feeling before.

    She _loved_ him.

    And they couldn’t be together, not really. There were so many things she still didn’t know. But she couldn’t accept that it was impossible -- she just couldn’t.

    There had to be _something._ Something she could hold onto, some way to know… if he felt the same.

    This idea plagued her for weeks as she settled into her new school. She didn’t have as much time to see him as she’d have liked, but when she did, it was always the highlight of her day.

    Then one afternoon, after a particularly frustrating akuma, she stopped in a nearby alley and realized she was out of cookies for Tikki. So she walked home, though she was half the city away from the apartment she’d recently rented close to her new school. The bakery was too far away for her tendency to be late, and her parents had promised to help her with the rent if she couldn’t manage.

    Seriously, she was so lucky.

    She walked out of the alley and headed down the street, only to be stopped by a traffic jam. And there, just two pawprints from his detransformation, was her kitty, carefully helping an old lady across the street. He was carrying a torn bag of groceries and it wasn’t hard to see what’d happened; she must have fallen and spilled the food, and Chaton was helping her to make sure it didn’t happen again.

    Something _clicked_ in Marinette’s heart, as she stood there watching that, an anonymous stranger on the street.

    He was amazing. Kind, and funny, and loyal, and sweet, and self-sacrificing and just… amazing.

    And she _loved_ him so much, she couldn’t bear to go another second without telling him.

 

    She had to, of course. She went many seconds after that without telling him.

    But she went on patrol late that night, though she’d told him that she had a previous engagement. Alya understood Marinette’s backing out of their movie night -- they were both busy with studying.

    Ladybug wasn’t sure if Chat would even be out, but he was. Something about the night always seemed to call to him, and she’d once thought he was just irresponsible but she knew now it was that he didn’t want to be at home.

    He was surprised when he saw her, but that had nothing on the shock on his face when she grabbed his bell and pulled him down to plant a kiss on his mouth.

    For a long, long moment, he just gaped at her, and she stared at him and wondered if that had been a bad idea, and--

    And then he kissed her again. And she kissed him back.

    And when they separated enough to breathe, she told him, “I-- I wasn’t going to do this. I’ve been telling myself to wait until we’ve defeated Hawk Moth, but I just… I want you to know, Chaton. I love you so much, and… and I…”

    “You--” he swallowed like it was hard for him to form words, staring at her with his eyes glistening in the dark. “You do?”

    “I do,” she told him, gloved hands on his shoulders, no desire to let go. And he wasn’t pushing her away, so her heart was soaring.

    “I… I love you too, M’lady,” he said after a moment, his clawed fingertips so gentle on her cheeks. “I always have.”

    “I know, _mon chaton_ ,” she said, smiling, though the words sang in her heart because it’d been so long that she wasn’t sure if she’d missed her opportunity. He grinned and his face was so happy, so so happy… she hugged him to her, burying her face in his neck, and he laughed as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

    They stood there like that for a long time, both basking in this revelation, before he tucked his chin down to her ear and murmured, “Why weren’t you going to tell me?”

    Ladybug sighed and shifted a bit so she could look up at him. And then she explained all the things that’d been running through her head, all the reasons they couldn’t reveal their true identities and how it killed her, not being able to really see him. To spend time with him outside the suits.

    “I just… couldn’t keep it in anymore,” she said finally, resting her cheek against the leather of his suit. “You deserve to know how amazing you are, and I never want to be someone who doesn’t tell you that.”

    There was quiet, and a wind off the river smelling of brine, and dampness on her neck, and she realized-- “Chaton, are you crying?” She pulled back and found that yes, there was silver lining his mask, and _mon dieu_ she hadn’t meant to--

    “Thank you,” he whispered, his hands cupping her face, and she understood that those weren’t sad tears. Not at all. “I... I understand. I don’t know if I fully agree with you, but I do understand. And I want to be with you too, M’lady. However you’ll have me.”

    His face was so open, his words so soft and sincere, and her heart melted out of her chest and she couldn’t say no.

    She just couldn’t.

    Because she loved him. And he loved her. And someday she’d know his name, someday she’d get to hear him snoring, someday she’d get to sit in an actual coffee shop with him and watch his _whole_ face as he laughed.

    But for now… this was enough.

    So she kissed him again. And again. And again.

    And when they made it public knowledge that Ladybug and Chat Noir were a couple, Marinette just smiled secretly as Alya fangirled at her and Chat sent her a smirky face through the private, anonymous messaging app they’d both agreed to download on their phones.

    And it was enough.

 


	3. On the Subject of Moving Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there have been several comments regarding Adrien's part in all of this, most specifically involving how it apparently seems like he's getting a free pass despite having been in the wrong as well. I'd like to reply individually (and will eventually) to all of you, but at the moment I don't have time, so I figured I'd address that here.
> 
> Firstly, this is very much a result of the way the story unfolds; it's entirely Marinette's personal stream of consciousness. Because of that, we only see her knowledge of the situation and her reactions to it. However, that's not to say Adrien got off scott free. He definitely also went through this moment where he realized he'd been pushing Ladybug too hard and wasn't being fair, since she'd rejected him and he was basically overwriting her feelings with no regard for what she'd actually SAID to him. He did go through that, and I tried to indicate that by showing that he'd started dating Kagami and trying to move on. The fact that the relationship with Kagami didn't work out, well, that's my personal view on that ship xD 
> 
> Basically, since as the readers we don't see Adrien's POV, I can see how it might seem like I'm being forgiving toward his own failures in this little rant fic. That isn't true. The fact that Chat said he'd always loved LB in the last chapter is a recogntion of the fact that he, unlike Marinette, DID actually know more about Ladybug than Mari knew about Adrien. Not that his feelings could really have been 'love', but they were at least better founded. I always attriube his horrible, over-the-top, pushy way of expressing that to the fact that he'd had basically no social training, like, ever. My personal opinion is that after he's spent enough time with his friends at school and begun to understand the social graces--not to mention girls--he'd realize he was being pushy and back off.
> 
> Anyway, I thought about adding a chapter between 1 and 2 for Adrien's POV, but since this is Mari's version it almost feels like that would throw the flow off? IDK, let me know what you guys think. :) I hope this clears that up a bit xD
> 
> Also, I know this last chapter is pretty short, but I had fun writing it xDD so I hope you enjoy it, even if it does feel a bit... tone-shifty on my end xD

    Time slipped past them in waves. Marinette rose to the top of her class at ESMOD, while Alya sped through her journalism degree in record time. Nino dropped out--no one was surprised--when he got a job as a DJ at a famous nightclub. Adrien went to work for _Gabriel_ , moving from modeling into the more business-oriented aspect of the industry.

    And Chaton, well, Ladybug didn’t know what Chaton was doing, since he couldn’t tell her, but he seemed happy. Despite the fact that they continuously failed to find and defeat Hawk Moth. Their only consolation, on nights when being unable to leave their suits was particularly frustrating, was that Hawk Moth had to be just as annoyed as they were by the constant, pointless battling.

    And it was _very_ frustrating. In more ways than one.

    Marinette could handle the akumas. She could handle the constant interruptions and the sleepless nights and the life that had become her routine.

    Handling the things she couldn’t know, on the other side of the coin, slowly became increasingly difficult.

    She wanted to know her Chaton’s identity. For cat’s sake, she wanted to be able to kiss him without leather getting in the way of her mouth!

    Early one morning, after a particularly frustrating make-out session on the rooftops--which led to Marinette taking matters into her own hands back home, not for the first time--she finally started ranting to Tikki.

    She was nineteen, for crying out loud, and she’d been dating Chat for nearly two years, and if she wanted to have sex with her boyfriend, was that really so wrong?!

    It was impossible, though. And, _mon dieu_ , just saying the words out loud was so embarrassing that Marinette promptly buried her face in her pillows and decided she’d never leave her apartment again.

    She was being so… _petty._ It was _not_ the end of the world. She could wait. She’d been waiting. He was waiting, too, and probably wasn’t nearly this broken up about it.

    Well, knowing Chat, he probably was.

    She couldn’t help but groan into her pillows, and Tikki’s tinkling laughter overhead didn’t help matters.

    “You know, Marinette…” She looked up to see Tikki smiling fondly at her. “Your suit manifests as what you most desire. You could always just… desire some zippers.”

    Marinette stared at her kwami for a long, silent moment, as this idea bounced around and around in her malfunctioning brain.

    Zippers. Right. Of course. So simple. Right?

    The simple fact that it was Tikki suggesting it, though--sweet, supportive, innocent Tikki--had Marinette dying of embarrassment again in no time.

    “Oh, Tikki, I’m so sorry--” she moaned, burying herself in the pillows again. “It’s probably so awkward for you--”

    They’d talked about it once, after the first time Ladybug and Chat went… pretty much as far as they could go while wearing clothes. Marinette had been so embarrassed upon realizing that Tikki--as well as Chat’s kwami, Plagg--were privy to everything they’d been doing.

    Tikki had kindly assured her that while they _could_ see everything that went on outside the transformation, they didn’t _have_ to, and she hadn’t been watching.

    Still, it was always awkward to think that she and Chat weren’t _really_ alone when they were together. For all she knew, his kwami was a pervert who watched them. The few times she’d met Plagg hadn’t exactly assuaged this idea, though she knew it was probably unfair of her to judge the Black Cat so harshly.

    Tikki, above her, giggled again. “It’s not awkward, Marinette, it’s perfectly understandable. You’re a young woman in love. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

    Marinette cracked one eye open to look up at the kindest creature in existence and sniffled. “Zippers?”

    Tikki smiled.

 

    So Marinette tried zippers. She talked to Chat--the conversation wasn’t nearly as awkward as she expected it to be, since he decided to riddle it with puns to make her laugh--and after a few tries…

    Well, it worked.

    And their late-night rendezvous turned into all-night rendezvous, to the point that they found a few secluded spots atop abandoned buildings where they could safely fall asleep, leaving each other only once the sun was up. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked, and even Alya noticed that Marinette was _much_ less stressed.

   There was speculation, of course, but Marinette had never given any indication she was interested in anyone after Adrien, so Alya let it slide.

   And time moved forward. With the zippers came other gradual changes to her suit, and Chat’s. She added more black so her curves wouldn’t be quite so obvious, while his suit grew slightly less flamboyant... and somehow sexier.

    They grew no closer to capturing Hawk Moth, but their lives settled into patterns they grew used to. Not knowing each others’ identities became a fact they simply handled until it wasn’t a thing either of them even thought of anymore. It was simply a hope for a future they were both sure they’d someday have, and the present was enough for them.

    Marinette graduated from ESMOD and went back to work at _Gabriel_ , using Adrien’s father’s company as a stepping stone for her own career. Adrien himself had taken over vast portions of the company and rarely did any modeling anymore, while Alya and Nino moved into a modest flat near the TV station where Alya worked. Their other friends graduated, too, one after another, and spread out into their own careers and lifestyles.

    It was strange, the few times Marientte glanced over old pictures and old memories. She hadn’t realized she was growing up until… she was already there. Sometimes she still didn’t feel very grown up; somehow she’d always expected to have everything together once she was an adult.

    But she was still late more often than she wasn’t, and she was still the clumsiest person she knew, and her friends and family still laughed and shook their heads at her antics.

    On the other hand, Ladybug flourished. She grew stronger, smarter, faster, more in sync with her partner. And despite the ever-present irritation of Hawk Moth’s akumas, she was happy.

    _They_ were happy.

    And, really, that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, while this is the end of this story, I do think I'm going to do a sequel short fic to show the reveal, since that hasn't happened yet and I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to. I'd add it here, but I think the tone of the next bit is going to be pretty different. So keep your eyes peeled for a sequel :) I hope you enjoyed my little mess xD


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